Mission
Ch 21
POV Charlotte Albrecht
"…Lastly, Charlotte from the combatant division and Leon from the spell casting division."
Suddenly the words he had said just a while ago made sense. He knew that I was going to be paired with him. But how could a normal student be able to influence this sort of decision?
I didn't have much time to think about it. And in front of an 8th Circle Archmage, I didn't want to try anything. One wrong move and it would be over for me. I got up and exited the room, with Leon following right behind me. Outside was a staff member standing with a bunch of documents in his hand, which were handed to both of us.
"This contains each of your statistics and combat style. Read this fully and follow the instructions given." The person said in a detached voice before leaving.
Once we were alone, I finally got the opportunity, "You made this happen, didn't you?"
"I did," Leon replied without looking up from the document he was given.
"Why? Aren't you afraid I will just kill you the moment we are left alone?" This was the biggest question I had. I wanted to know his reason for doing this.
He sighed before replying, "Haa… I will be honest with you, Charlotte. I need a lot of points here. And since you are somebody really strong, I thought we could profit together by taking on the harder missions. As for why I am not afraid of you…?" He glanced at me before continuing, "There are a few reasons. One, you still need me to give you the information you want. And second, if you had wanted to kill me, you could have done it before, but you didn't. Doesn't that mean there is some degree of trust between us?"
Trust, huh? Keon already knew a lot of my secrets. At least it was enough to get me killed. Rather than being careful not to expose my secrets to some other person, I would be able to move much more freely with Leon who already knew about it. But.
"Is that all? Do you think I don't know how dangerous a person who knows my secrets is? And right now, you are weaker than me as well. If I wait till you grow stronger, you will completely have me under your thumb. I will lose all initiative. Isn't it better to nip the trouble in the bud?"
"So you say Charlotte, but what is more dangerous for you is killing me and not being under suspicion of any sort. And don't act as if this situation doesn't benefit you as well?"
What he was saying was true. He was my combat pair now. Seeing how he was able to influence the decisions of the institute, he definitely had some relationships with some high-ranking people on the inside. If he died during any of the missions, I would be under suspicion regardless of how natural I made his death seem to be.
Seeing me fall silent, a smile appeared on Leon's face as he stretched his right hand towards me, "Happy cooperation."
I thought about it for a moment before shaking his hands.
"By the way, you might want to see what is written in those papers. It is very interesting."
I flipped through the document and instantly realized the weirdness in Leon's statistics.
"Why is so much of your data missing?"
"I didn't bother attending all of the classes, so they weren't able to judge me."
Does he not want to pass or something? There was a more than 50 per cent attendance requirement to pass the courses. But he didn't attend to the point where the professors weren't able even to evaluate him.
The next page contained information about me. All of my abilities were given a high evaluation, except my strength which was given extremely high.
Just looking at that made cold sweat appear on my forehead. It seemed the instructor realized I was holding back my strength.
"You were this close to failure," Leon said while looking at me like it was amusing to him.
"But I didn't fail." I said more to convince myself than Leon.
"That is true. You managed to accomplish one of the hardest feats on the continent. Congratulations. Anyways the data on both of us is useless. But luckily, I seem to know your real strength. How convenient is that?"
I didn't waste any more breath on him and flipped to the next section of the document. The instructor had said there would be instructions here, so I was expecting some words there, but instead I was greeted with an image of a monster.
.
.
.
"Alright, it's your both turn now. Fight."
Just as Sir Weber's voice fell, the cage door was opened, and a big figure with red eyes stumbled out of it.
A Bloodthirsty Eagle. A top-level 3 monster.
The monster's information popped in my head as I readied my weapon.
This was the test that the Archmage was talking about. Every group was assigned a monster according to their level of strength that they would have to beat. The fight would be graded, and our degree of cooperation would be considered before we officially became a combat pair.
"Scrreee…"
The bird shrieked before opening its wings, But before it could take off into the air, I moved,
"
Double slash was one of the new combat arts I learned after coming here.
In an instant, two gashes appeared on the right wing of the Bloodthirsty Eagle. If I used my Weapon Specialist strength, it would have been a piece of cake to decapacitate it even, but I didn't dare to use my full strength under the eyes of the teacher.
In this time, Leon had readied his spells which he let loose at once, "Mental Terror~ Sleep~ Ice Splinter~ Accelerate~"
The movement speed of the Eagle slowed down considerably, and a barrage of ice shards flew into the gash I had created, completely rendering that wing useless. It couldn't fly anymore.
"
When Leon was casting his spells, I moved into the blind spot of the monster by using
The monster collapsed on the ground with a pool of blood slowly spreading out from it.
"Nice work. You took care of it way easier than I expected." The instructor casually commented as he scribbled something on the sheaf of pages he had in his hands before continuing. "You pass. You can go choose a mission to complete now."
And with that, we were ready to finally pick a mission. This was going to be the first time we would be allowed to leave the premises of the academy.
.
"This floor has at most missions which 3rd refinement rank people are qualified for. The others are on the next one. Apparently, they did this because even though people wouldn't be able to accept it they would choose to do higher requirement missions since they were still on display." Leon explained as we entered the academy's adventurer guild.
A day had passed since we passed the combat pair assessment. Yesterday after the test, I went and asked around for information on Leon. And finding it was not as difficult as I had expected it to be. A lucky survivor from the collapse of the Durnell family. From his actions, it seemed like he didn't care if someone knew about his origins either, almost as if it was… a fake story. I had infiltrated some organizations with a similar convenient premade story.
If he really was just a lucky survivor from a branch family then what was with those assassins after him. And why hadn't anybody heard of him before? With that sort of talent, he would have been famous regardless of whether he was from a branch family or not. There was also the matter of having connections with the academy. Either way, it was clear that even if what he was saying was not a lie, it wasn't the complete truth either. There was a lot he was still hiding.
"Do you have any preferences?" Leon asked me, breaking the silence.
I looked up at the wall filled with mission posts. The missions had been arranged according to difficulty and rewards to make them easy to navigate. On the left were simple helping missions, while on the right were missions of beating multiple level 3 monsters like what we had fought yesterday.
"Not really. What about you?" I asked without showing any emotion after having a brief look at all the missions. What I was more interested in knowing was what Leon preferred. It would give at least some information about his origins.
"I personally don't want to go the Carnel and Gretel Empires. Anywhere else is fine."
Is it because he is really from the Durnell family?
"This time, we are only allowed to go to neighbouring states. If not Carnel and Gretel then there exists only Floreden Empire or one of the smaller kingdoms."
Leon thought about it for a while before grabbing one of the posts.
"How about this one?" He asked, handing me the paper.
[
Quest: 1) Investigate the reason for the increased number of monsters in the Moskvan Forest
2) Solve the problem (optional)
Requirements: 2-5 people of 3rd refinement rank.
Location: Moskvan Forest, Ralendall Kingdom, Brethel Continent
Requester: Alet Village -> Drune City Mayor -> Drune Guild Branch -> Tristow Capital City Guild Branch -> Greenwich Guild Branch
Description: In the last couple of months the monster sightings on the outskirts of the forest have increased. Similar findings have been reported by those who have entered the forest. The task is to find the reason and solve the problem if possible.
Rewards: 7000 (+ 10,000 )
]
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